


Roots Of The Problem

by Alexilulu



Category: Persona 5, Persona Series
Genre: Dorks in Love, F/M, Hair Dyeing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-27
Updated: 2018-08-27
Packaged: 2019-07-03 08:58:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15815655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alexilulu/pseuds/Alexilulu
Summary: Yusuke's search for the perfect pigment for his current project takes a sharp detour when Futaba gets involved.





	Roots Of The Problem

**Author's Note:**

> Hey y'all, this was my zine piece for the Yutaba Fanzine, Eccentric Mode! It's honestly one of my favorite pieces of writing I've done in awhile (or was at the time), so I hope y'all enjoy!

“How about this one?” Futaba shoots to her feet, brushing dust from her sleeve and brandishing a tube of deep mahogany brown paint at Yusuke, who is surveying the display of paints she was rooting through the bottom shelf of with a critical eye. His gaze flickers down from the shelf in front of him to the tube, then back.

“Hm, too dark. I need something slightly darker than chestnut brown. I may have to resort to mixing in black to deepen the shade, at this rate…” He sighs, shaking his head. “That said, you don’t have to tire yourself searching in vain with me, Futaba.”

“Gee, I wish you’d said that, like, 5 stores ago. We’ve been across half of Tokyo on your weird brown crusade, dude, my knees are killing me.” She squats down again, shoving the brown tube back onto the rack and glaring at the neon colors resting on the shelf right at eye-level with her. She _would_ glare at Yusuke, ordinarily, but he wouldn’t notice. He’s on one of his art sprees _again_ , so Futaba nominated herself to make sure that he doesn’t die after a slightly worrying exchange in the group chat—something about not eating for several days, and being so close to finishing ‘ _it_ ’. Whatever ‘ _it’_ is. Probably something boring. Yusuke mostly works in landscapes and impressionist stuff, from what little Futaba understands about his art. Which is mostly relayed to her from Akira, who is basically the only one who indulges him.

“I only needed your train pass, you could have left at any time.” Yusuke keeps looking at the display, eventually picking up a tube of brown and black paint and holding them up together, tilting his head to the side as he considers them.

“Pfft, nah. I wouldn’t miss all _this_ fun for the world. What do you even doing this for, anyway?” Futaba hasn’t taken her eyes off the primary colors in front of her, resting her chin in her hand.

“I am working on a…portrait. Attempting to work in a style unfamiliar to me, as well. The style was not as difficult as I anticipated, but something is subtly off about the final product. I suspect the color balance has been thrown off by an expansive use of bright color, and—” She tunes him out as he delves into color theory and balance and composition and a dozen other artsy terms she can’t really get without 20 minutes on Google, and of course he never bothers to explain. Instead, she returns to fantasies about hair dye, while he drones on.

She hasn’t dyed her hair a new color since before last July, when…well. Since everything. The orange was a spur of the moment thing just before things started to get really bad for her, but she kind of liked the effect with the green of her Oracle costume, so she’d stuck with it for the rest of the year. But now, she’s not really that attached to it, anymore.

So, she can do… _anything_.

Futaba grabs a handful of tubes, holding them up to a length of her hair and turning to Yusuke. “Hey, help me pick. I’m thinking red? Would it come out weird if I don’t lift the orange out first?”

“Hm, red is a primary color, while orange is a secondary color…It would meet in the middle, so to speak.” His mouth twitches into a small smile.

“Huh. And if I did something else, it’d be way weirder. Like blue?” She waggles the blue tube at him, which he plucks from her hand.

“You do realize this is paint, not dye, yes?” He helpfully punctuates his statement by tapping the PAINT in big bold type on the label.

“No duh!” She throws the rest of the tubes in her other hand at him, bouncing ineffectually off his chest with a gentle thump. “We’re in a _Junes_ , they’ve got everything. Including hair dye, I used to use their brand all the time.”

“Ah, of course.” Yusuke stoops to pick up the paint from the floor, holding out a hand to Futaba for the last tube and dutifully sets the display back to its original state, minus the brown and black paints he has apparently settled for.

“Why’d you bother? You know they pay people to keep the store clean, right?”

“Certainly. But…isn’t there a certain artfulness to a retail display, ready to receive customers? I don’t wish to deprive whoever arrives here next of that experience, if the shop worker cannot arrive to correct the display in time.”

“…Alright, dude.” Leave it to Yusuke to be able to say something so utterly weird that also sort of makes sense, in a way. She gives a lingering look to the red tube in its slot, pursing her lips and humming to herself in frustration. Damn it, leave it to her to get fixated on something and start being weird about it, too.

“It is a quite striking color. Not that there is anything wrong with your orange, of course. It flatters your complexion.” Yusuke startles her when she realizes he stepped closer to her, leaning down to look at the red. His face isn’t all that close to her, but somehow him lowering himself down to look at the low shelf feels weirdly…close. Like he’s trying to get down to her level, engage her on her terms and not his lofty artsy-fartsy crap like usual. It’s…weirdly...nice?

When Futaba looks over at him, she realizes something. From this position, with him leaning down, she can just barely see the top of his head, for what seems like the first time _ever_.

He’s got brown roots.

Just _barely_ peeking out at the crown of his head, almost impossible to see if not for the fluorescent lighting shining off of his glossy, almost black-blue hair. Naturally, she starts giggling, because _holy shit, of course he dyes his hair, the vain bastard_ , and she has to sit down on the linoleum, clutching her stomach and wheezing for breath between gusts of laughter.

“What a child. What could possibly be so funny?” Yusuke hauls Futaba to her feet with a hand when she seems to have regained even a little composure, to her startled surprise. So startled, in fact, that she doesn’t let go of his hand. “Did you still wish to get hair dye?”

“Yeah, definitely. Gives me something to do this afternoon, I guess.” Futaba finally realize she’s still in skin contact with him, wriggling her hand out of his and blushing mightily. Rather than let him linger on it, she marches off without another word, tilting her head so her hair hides enough of her face that nobody else can see how flustered she is.

Futaba brings her march to a halt at the dye display a few aisles over, frowning at the variety of reds on display. She wants it _bright_ , something you can spot a mile away, something that says she chose it and not just that she’s a redhead.

It’s always sort of been about choice, of course. Her first color was bleach blonde, so bright it hurt, and so crispy it also hurt. These things happen when you let an unsupervised 12 year old who is rebelling against her awful uncle have an hour alone to herself. At least Sojiro was supportive, once he got guardianship of her. Hell, he helped her bleach her roots more times than she can count since then. It started out a solitary activity, but kind of became a group one for her, somehow, a good way to bond with somebody. Some of her best memories with Sojiro involve their semi-monthly dye parties; He’d cook something they could eat with their fingers, they’d put on some terrible tv, and then make fun of it all night.

She rounds on Yusuke, holding up an eye-searing red and the deepest blue she could find. “Hey, Inari. What do you think?”

“I think blue doesn’t suit your skin, but you’re welcome to argue otherwise. Were you not listening when I explained warm and cool tones?”

“Not that, stupid. Dye party! You help me with mine, I help you with yours. It’ll be fun.” Futaba smirks, lobbing the blue box to him, which he manages to catch by dropping his paint. Yusuke gives the box a demeaning look, then turns it on Futaba.

“I don’t dye my hair.”

“C’mon, dude, don’t play dumb. We both know bishonen don’t _actually_ come in blue IRL.”

“How did you—Eye-arl?” He goes from mild anger to confusion at her so incredibly basic acronym so quickly that it breaks her heart. She kinda wanted him to linger on the burn, but confusion will do just as well. Maybe he’ll actually listen while he’s under a status effect…

“C’mon, It’s kind of a pain to do by myself and I hate asking Sojiro for stuff.” She lies smoothly, feeling a twinge of guilt at what will surely be Sojiro’s sad reaction to seeing her dyeing her hair without him, but hey. A girl’s gotta grow up eventually, right?

“Hm.” He folds his arm, cradling the blue box in one hand and raising his hand to his chin, staring right at her with a critical eye. Futaba grits her teeth, the remnants of her blush returning to her face, but stands her ground. Damn it, it’s been a year since she started going outside again, and she already gets by without Akira as her questgiver. Surely she’s ready for a boy to _touch her hair_ by now, right? This should be no big deal!

…Even if the boy is ridiculously pretty, and weirdly interesting despite his awful habits and nonsensical musings, and despite his habit of drinking his paint water more than his actual water that probably makes his mouth taste AWFUL—

“I don’t see why not. It’s a medium I’ve never worked in, another person’s scalp. I simply hope that you will enjoy my work.” He stoops, picking up his paints and setting them on a shelf. “We should head back soon then, before the commissary closes at the dorms.”

“Not taking that?” She nods towards the paints he’s abandoned.

“No. I’ve been…struck with inspiration, let’s say. I think I know what I need to do now.”

* * *

It doesn’t take long for Futaba’s anxiety to get the better of her. About…2 train stops, in fact.

On the train to _Yusuke’s dorm._

She fidget’s incessantly in her seat, flicking keys and the odd charm over her hand like beads on a rosary. What wild, insane impulse made her go for this? And how the hell did she not notice him mention the dorm? She got on the train, thinking he was taking her home, but then she heard the stop names, and he corrected her, and now she’s _dying._ She probably looks like she’s going insane. Thankfully, Yusuke isn’t watching her, standing just in front of her seat peoplewatching.

Well, until she leaps to her feet and nearly shrieks when her phone starts buzzing in her shorts pocket. Then Yusuke does give her a look like she’s insane, or something approaching it, but returns to watching the crowd when she fishes the phone out of her pocket and opens her messaging app.

 

 **JokeKing:** hows Yusuke’s latest weird hyperfixation going

 **Medjed:** you scared the shit out of me

 **JokeKing:** nobody expects me. Even my text messages are stealthy

 **JokeKing:** like a cat. So whats up then

 **Medjed:** uhh

 **Medjed:** we’re going to his dorm?

 **JokeKing:** hot damn

 **JokeKing:** gonna model for him? Ann turned him down first so he’s finally made it to the smallest cup size in the group, then

 **Medjed:** holy shit SHUT UP!

 **JokeKing:** sorry not sorry

 **Medjed:** ugh we’re dyeing our hair

 **JokeKing:** oh, *our* hair?

 **Medjed:** u owe me 2000 yen btw he dyes I saw his roots

 **JokeKing:** yeah yeah

 **JokeKing:** you doing ok? This is a big step for you

 **Medjed:** shouldn’t you be running a cafe

 **JokeKing:** please I’m saving Sojiro time, this place is dead

 **JokeKing:** and you’re avoiding the question

 **Medjed:** im…ugh

 **Medjed:** I feel like I tricked myself into this? And now I’m terrified

 **JokeKing:** that’s valid. But consider this: you’ve been fucked up over this idiot for what, a year?

 **Medjed:** 1 year 3 months 8 days

 **JokeKing:** not that you’re counting or anything

 **Medjed:** shut up, you freaking

 **Medjed:** bisexual-ass dating your highschool sweetheart ass freaking BUTTHEAD

 **Medjed:** some of us aren’t socially well adjusted!

 **JokeKing:** uh huh.

 **Medjed:** why did I think this would be a good idea

 **JokeKing:** uhh you got a huge messy crush that you’ve only concealed because the target is about as perceptive about other people’s emotion as a blind brick wall

 **Medjed:** hey I’m right here

 **JokeKing:** hah

 **JokeKing:** anyway. This is your chance. Let him touch your head and everything will be fine

 **Medjed:** im going to scream

 **JokeKing:** instead of doing that you can talk to him like a normal person instead

 **Medjed:** I dont think normal and either of us mixes well

 **JokeKing:** you know what I mean. Just be yourself. I think you’re blowing this out of proportion, and clearly you do too if you went along with it. Just see where the afternoon takes you!

 **Medjed:** fine. FINE!

 **JokeKing:** I’ll tell Sojiro you’re gonna be late. Have a good time! <3

 **Medjed:** ughhhh <3

 

Futaba can’t help but smile when she locks her phone and stuffs it into her jacket pocket. Akira’s a fucker, sometimes, but he always seems to know what to say that will point out how dumb Futaba is being—which is usually a lot. Even if he’s embarrassingly nice about it.

“Good conversation?” Yusuke has apparently returned his attention to her during her texting spree, to her abject horror.

“Y-yeah. Akira’s just snooping as usual.” She keeps smiling, though Yusuke watching her smile feels so weird. Like a performance, almost.

“Ah. Did he take issue with our afternoon plans? We could always reschedule to another day.”

“What? No. He was just wondering why I was gone for so long this morning. You don’t have to jump to the worst conclusion, dude.”

“Hm, that’s—I suppose you’re right. Fatalism about the intentions of friends leads to a dark path.” Yusuke pauses, more out of self-preservation when the train stops and he has to fight to remain upright in the press of new passengers. Once things are settled, he continues to himself more than to Futaba. “Perhaps Madarame’s mark still remains upon me.” He’s just barely audible over the rest of the train noise, but Futaba recognizes that tone without fail. It’s one she’s used on herself plenty.

“…You OK, dude?” Futaba’s grip on the Junes bag tightens. Ever since last year, she feels like she can spot when her friends are still thinking about the shit that happened to them. Her change of heart saved her life, but…they didn’t exactly get the same benefits from their own struggles, did they. They got closure, mostly, but it’s not the same, not really.

“I’ll be fine. Moving on is a process I have not mastered, it would seem.” The train slides to a stop, and Yusuke holds out a hand for her to take when the doors open. Futaba takes it readily, pulling herself up and holding onto him as they exit, her eyes locked on his back.

They didn’t get the same thing out of last year that she did, but she’d long ago decided she would at least try to be there for him. Yusuke had nobody for so long, it gives her a little bit of joy to know that she can at least try be there for him. Even if it’s just from somebody like her.

* * *

“Must you fidget so _incessantly_?” Yusuke grumbles as he rearranges a patchy carpet of towels on his bed (and under Futaba) until he’s satisfied. In preparation for The Procedure, she’s stripped out of her jacket, down to her tank top and another towel draped over her shoulders to protect her clothes from her already-dampened hair, fighting every impulse to shiver and failing miserably. It’s not _her_ fault the room is frigid, and weirdly damp from the aquarium (who the hell got him _that?_ ) sitting across from the bed, housing only one of the lobsters from last summer.

She hasn’t worked up the courage to ask him where the other is.

“Maybe if it wasn’t so frigging cold in here, I wouldn’t!” Futaba shoots back, pulling the towel closer to her.

“Personally, I blame your deplorable fashion sense. The only piece of clothing appropriate for the season you wore today is your jacket.” He steps back, framing her with his fingers and nodding to himself. “The entire floor is unheated, but it affords me a room to myself, and more room for my own artistic pursuits.”

“I can see that.” The rest of the room not occupied by the bed and lobster tank is strewn haphazardly with art supplies, books and god knows what else. Even the easel in the corner, by the window, has a gigantic cloth thrown over it. The only spotless part of the room is a roughly meter-wide circle in front of his dresser. No real surprise there…

“Yes yes.” He dismisses her with a wave, walking back into the entryway and calling back to her. “I’m going to prepare the dye. Don’t move, please.” The sound of running water starts when he enters the bathroom.

Now she just has to shiver for the next hour, and for what? The privilege of her crush touching her head?

Lame. This was _much_ scarier hours ago. Now it’s just. Mundane.

For lack of anything else to do, Futaba scans the room for something to needle Yusuke about when he returns, searching fruitlessly. The only thing that stands out in the sea of brushes and pens is a sketch pinned to the wall next to the easel, just at the right angle for whoever’s standing at the easel to be able to look up at it without moving.

Hey. Wait...

She hops to her feet, crossing the room and standing under the easel, looking up at the sketch on the wall. The length of the hair, the glasses. They even have her phone.

That’s her.

It’s a shockingly rendered sketch of her face…in Mementos, she can see the neck of her Oracle bodysuit at the bottom of the sketch. When was this? It’s definitely over a year old…Yeah, that’s not her phone, it’s her old phone from last year. It’s freaking her out, because…it’s serene. She’s so calm looking, thumbing through her phone like nothing important is happening. Every photo of her any of the Thieves (or Sojiro, for that matter) have gotten of her has been her honest reaction to being photographed, which is usually pulling a gross face or fury at an attempt to catch her off guard. But here, he got it.

If…if that’s what he’s looking at when he’s painting, then…Her hand reaches out for the cloth covering the canvas, taking hold of the bottom—

“Must you work your mischief even when I leave you alone?” Futaba jumps when Yusuke speaks from just behind her, dropping the cloth and scrambling back to her seat, blushing furiously.

“I didn’t touch anything, I was just looking!”

“Looking and dripping water on my carpet, perhaps. It’s of no importance.” Yusuke pulls a stool from the corner of the room and drags it to the bed, sitting down in front of Futaba and mixing the dye some more with a brush. “Come now, stop fidgeting.” Futaba does her best to comply, keeping any movement confined to tapping her fingers against her thighs in a complicated pattern. She’d been too busy panicking about the actual touching part that she hadn’t had time to consider everything else going on here. Like his knee resting against the side of her own, the scratchy fabric of a poorly kept pair of uniform pants scraping against her skin every time he shifts in his seat, too intent on finishing the mixing to notice. And _because_ he’s so close, she can hear him breathing through his nose, so calm and collected like touching a girl’s head all afternoon is just another Wednesday in the Kitagawa dorm.

How is he always so cool, so collected? She’s so _goddamn jealous_. What she wouldn’t give to not feel like this right now, heart fluttering like a hummingbird on stimulants. And it only gets worse when his hand cups her cheek to hold her head steady. He starts drawing the brush down her scalp in steady, slow strokes, more concerned with his brushwork than the heat rising under his palm from her cheek. Futaba remains stock still for him except for her hands, clasped together and squeezing together in time with her breathing, which is far too quick for comfort. And then she worries that Yusuke will notice it, and say something, and worrying about _that_ means that she’s worrying that she’s gonna ruin everything makes her worry _more, and—_

“Your hair is incredibly soft. Softer than I expected.” Yusuke dips his brush into the dye and swirls, wiping excess off on the rim and moving to another section of her scalp like he didn’t just drop an _insane_ flirty compliment in her lap.

“O-oh, yeah? I, uh, well, I gotta take care of it, you know.” Futaba laughs poorly, a short hah-hah that she hates the moment it leaves her mouth. “Dye’s really harsh on it, so I do a bunch of stuff to it to help keep it nice.”

“I can tell. I daresay, if not for the dye’s damage, your hair would be as luxurious as Ann’s.” Again, no visible reaction to his own line except the usual diffidence that he treats everything with. She can’t decide if she wants to start hitting him and yelling or kiss him as hard as she can. It’s like there’s been a segfault in her friend or foe processing, so now all her feelings about Yusuke are getting jumbled up. In the end, she decides that moving would probably ruin the moment, so she bites her lip and tries to com up with a response that isn’t ludicrously childish or babbled nonsense. “Hm, yes, this is actually working out to a pleasing shade. It may even be simpler to mix than—” He grunts to himself, cutting off his own train of thought.

“Mix like, paint mix? Like that thing you were working on?” Her eyes flicker up to the portrait, and whatever’s on that easel that he was using her for reference for.

“Ah—yes. The, portrait I spoke of before, the subject has vibrantly colored hair, but—” He pauses, putting down his brush and piling up Futaba’s locks on one side up onto the top of her head, now that he’s done with that half of her head. She doesn’t say anything about his brilliantly red hands (she bought gloves! Where are the gloves, dude?!), luxuriating in the warmth of his hands for the scant moments they remain connected. “It’s not done. Something eludes me, though I know not what. It is my first time working in the medium since I was much younger. The feeling the work is meant to evoke is not coming to me.” He sighs, picking up his brush again and making a face when he realizes his hands are covered in dye. “Difficult. It has been difficult.”

“Huh. So you were looking at the browns because…?”

“I already told you, the color balance. Her—their—hair is a very bright color, and I think I made it too bright. I had hoped to reduce the brightness by mixing in some of their natural hair color, but…”

Futaba releases a breath, closing her eyes. That’s all the confirmation she needs. Akira knows her natural hair color (thanks, Sojiro), which means that everyone knows it. He’s painting her. A gigantic portrait, for some insane reason…

“Before our trip to Junes, I had been positive that I may need to give up on it. I had been attempting for days to find what was wrong with it. But you helped me, in your own way. Perhaps this is my way of giving thanks to you.”

“And not the portrait you’re painting of me.” Futaba blurts, digging her nails into her palm when she finally says it. All this stupid dancing around it, like he’s trying to hide it, was driving her nuts.

“Ah.” Yusuke grimaces, finishing his stroke and wetting the brush again. “I’ve been careless, haven’t I.”

“Doesn’t take a genius to see a portrait of yourself on the wall next to an easel and connect the dots.” Futaba watches Yusuke, who closes his eyes and breathes slowly for a moment before returning to his task.

“Yes. I found the sketch fairly recently, in my old Mementos sketchbook. How do I say this—” Yusuke piles the last of her hair onto her head, finished with applying the dye. Even so, he absentmindedly spins the brush in the leftover dye, looking at the bowl. “That was probably the first time I had ever seen you look so tranquil. That one unguarded moment was…beautiful. No other word applies. And—” He sighs. “It reminded me of something. Someone.”

It doesn’t take a detective to connect Portrait, Beautiful and Yusuke for Futaba to figure out he means the portrait on the wall of Leblanc. The _Sayuri_.

“You know, normally girls don’t like it if you compare them to your mother, dude.” She feels herself blushing, even so. The portrait may be in an old style, but it’s pretty obvious that Yusuke’s mom was _gorgeous._

“Her saintly calm mirrored yours so exactly, I fear that I rushed into something heedless of the consequences.” He glances back at the easel, expression unreadable. “The purity of emotion on display was too much for me. I’m sorry if I’ve put you off by starting with such a grand gesture of affection.”

“Geez…”Futaba chuckles nervously, reaching up to try to tuck her hair behind her ear and realizing her mistake halfway, turning the gesture to scratching her cheek. “You’re gonna give a girl ideas, dude.”

“Then I give them with all my heart. I simply wish I had the time to finish my work before you found out.” He stands, cradling the dye bowl in his hands. “For now, Futaba, please know that I hold you in the highest regard. I’m going to wash my brush. And my hands. Don’t get the dye on anything, please.”

Futaba watches him leave out of the corner of her eye, cursing with all her heart this beautiful blue idiot who just talks like that and _then walks away from her?!_

* * *

Sure enough, Yusuke comes out of the bathroom with a clean brush (and only mildly reddened hands), says he’s going to get dinner for the both of them, and then disappears again.

Futaba has to restrain herself from shouting his actual, real name after him as he goes.

So now Futaba’s _alone in a boy’s room who just confessed to her_ (sort of) with nothing to do but wait for her dye to finish. She resists every single vindictive, tsundere urge in her soul to bury her head in his pillow and rub until it looks like he murdered someone on it.

It’s even a white pillowcase, it’s perfect!

Ugh!

She leans over to her jacket, fishing her phone out of it. Pulling her knees to her chest, she blocks as much of her face for a selfie as she can, using artfully placed emoji to finish the job. Once she’s satisfied, she texts it to Akira.

 

 **JokeKing:** good color!

 **JokeKing:** how’d it go

 **Medjed:** he holds me in his highest regard, and also hes painting a 1 meter square portrait of me

 **JokeKing:** huh. Well. That explains some things

 **JokeKing:** like him even letting you come along. He hates hanging out with basically anyone but you

 **JokeKing:** where’s the man himself?

 **Medjed:** getting dinner. After telling me that and disappearing for 15 minutes ‘cleaning his brush’

 **JokeLord:** hoo boy.

 **JokeLord:** you gotta tell him

 **Medjed:** ughhhhhhh

 **Medjed:** I gotta think, this is stupid, I’m stupid

 

She locks her phone and pitches it at Yusuke’s pillow, where it continues to buzz with text notifications for a few more minutes before going silent. Returning to hugging her knees, Futaba closes her eyes and tries to slow everything down in her head that’s screaming about what a disaster nightmare her life is.

Yusuke likes her. The fucking gigantic portrait under cloth is definitely an indicator, but he did also _sort of (?)_ say it? And he trusts her to just be alone in his room, _again?_ Right after she got caught snooping, even! He was literally touching her face not even 10 minutes ago, finally got the skinship she’s wished for basically since she got to know him, but somehow _this_ is way more intimate. A much more clear statement of utter trust than the minor token of skin contact.

She could do anything. And he’s trusting her not to.

God. This is ridiculous. And _who_ paints a meter wide portrait as a ‘ _token of affection_ ’? It’s too much?

She can’t match that. …Yet.

The beginning of A Plan start to form when she gives up on sitting around and gets up to wash the dye out of her hair. There’s nothing for it for today, but with a week’s preparation and ~0.233 btc she can get him the _perfect_ response gift. She thinks. Maybe.

Doubt starts to creep in as she watches the red water run out onto the shower floor (god bless unit bathrooms for having flexible shower heads; she was NOT getting naked in a boy’s room, no matter the cost). After entertaining her anxiety for about 5 seconds, she force ends _that_ process in its tracks. If Yusuke saw the inside of her head and thought ‘yeah I wanna hang out with _that_ mess’, then there’s no way in hell he’s gonna think anything she does for him is anything less than incredible. Right?

Luckily, her train of thought comes into station right as Yusuke bangs on the door into the hallway, shouting incoherently in his unmistakable voice to be let in. “Futaba, let me in! My hands are full!”

“Hang on, you dope!” Futaba shouts back, wringing her hair out and wrapping it in the towel from her shoulders to let more moisture in so it doesn’t dry out like mad. And give Yusuke a surprise when she whips it out on him. Finally satisfied, she steps out into the entryway and throws the door open, letting a cloud of steam out into the hallway.

“About t—” Yusuke freezes when he sees her, and Futaba realizes that perhaps having the water as high as it’ll go wasn’t the smartest idea. The room was damp before, but her hair is actually _dripping_ still through the towel, and all the steam is making her top cling _wayyyyy_ too much. Maybe this was a bad idea. “I, uh, well. I see you made use of the facilities.”

Is _he_ the one blushing?

“W-well, yeah! I had to! You only keep this dye in for 30 minutes, you know?!”

“Right, of course. If I may…” He nods towards the rest of his room, and Futaba scrabbles out of the way, biting her lip. Well, this is turning into a romance manga pretty quickly. Except she’s probably the worst heroine they could have picked for this. She trails after him, closing the door and watching him carefully to try to figure out his feelings on Operation Wet Hot Japanese NEET.

He seems pretty calm, opening the blinds to let the afternoon sun into the room, bathing everything in gold. Yusuke sits down on the floor and moves the stool out of the way, holding a bowl out for Futaba to take. She sits down across from him on the floor, crossing her legs and putting the bowl to the side of her. It’s katsu curry over rice, apparently, and she’d hate to spill it when she does what she’s thinking about doing.

When in a romance manga…sometimes you gotta do what the heroine wouldn’t do.

“So, uh, what took so long?”

“I wanted to get something to drink, as well, so I went to the convenience store off-campus first. Then there was a line…” He hoists the bag hanging in the other hand, digging out a bottle of Pepsi and a pair of chopsticks, holding them out to Futaba.

She takes them both, sets them to the side, and then tackles him before he has time to lift the bowl and start eating, knocking him flat onto his back and pinning him down by his shoulders.

“Y-you know, I had a lot of t-time to think about what you said.” Okay: step one done. Now she just gotta get him to actually say it.

“About what?” Yusuke says evenly, not even a hint of anxiety or fear from him about the whole ‘getting tacked’ situation.

“Oh, you know, the whole... _affection_ thing.” Her voice only shakes in her head as she reminds herself what she’s going to say next. “I wanted to show you a token of _my_ affection, too.” That’s right, Futaba, just ride manga dialogue all the way home. Then you can freak out. Next, for the big reveal.

Futaba whips her head, the towel falling to her side, and her newly crimson hair falls down around both of them, enveloping them both. With the sun streaming against it, they look like they’re both curtained by fire.

“…My god.” Yusuke whispers, entranced.

It’s working! Oh _shit_ , it’s working.

The next step is sooooooo scary. She leans down, brushing some of her own hair off of Yusuke’s face and smiling, even as her heart keeps turning up it’s clock speed far past the manufacturer recommended limits. Just a little bit longer…Just a kiss. It’s only a kiss.

She moves first, leaving Yusuke stunned into inaction and slow to respond to her lips meeting his. Not that she’s very much in control, given how every thought in her mind is crashing down around her like she’s run out of memory, her RAM getting filled with new information faster than it can be processed. Like his lips, chapped and dry but tasting faintly of green tea, or his hair under her hand when she brushes further up his cheek with one hand, ridiculously dry and practically brittle, so much so that she feels like she has to buy him conditioner the next time they go to the Junes. And then she runs out of RAM entirely and gives up on remembering anything when Yusuke’s hands creep up around her and take a gentle hold of her as he responds to her kiss in kind.

The rest is a vague blur of touch and sound until Yusuke finally pushes her away from him but not out of his grasp, looking awestruck up at her in his arms. “Futaba…”

“Y-yeah?” It feels weird being simultaneously held and held _aloft_ by him, but she brushes her bangs back out of nervous habit, eyes wide and scared. Now that she’s back to her usual processing power, she’s running into all the red flags that got thrown up by her anxiety while she was bluescreening in the embrace of her crush. Namely, what if Yusuke hadn’t meant it like that?

“Can you move? There’s something I must do.”

Oh shit. Futaba scrambles off of him, sitting on his bed and looking down at her hands like a scolded child. Please let this just be that he needs to pee or something, not…oh _shit_.

Yusuke hops to his feet, taking his bowl of food off the floor and putting his stool where it sat. Then he wrestles with the easel, dragging it from it’s corner so that he can sit and face her while he paints. Finally, he walks back to her, kneeling down in front of her.

“W-what?” Futaba bites her lip, looking down at him with more than a little terror.

“Futaba…” He takes her hand, bringing it up to his lips and giving the back a gentle kiss. “Thank you. You are an inspiration—my inspiration. I had thought that perhaps a new avenue might open up to me, but never like this.”

Futaba blushes, eyes going wide as all of her anxiety melts away. “You mean—”

“Yes. I realize now what I needed was not something wrong with the picture, but my subject. I needed you in the flesh, not a false rendering on paper. Nothing else compares to the real thing.”

Holy hell, dude. “That’s a hell of a line, you know that?” Futaba mutters, wiping a tear from her eye.

“It is nothing less than the truth. I know it is a lot to ask, especially now, but—May I pose you?”

“Oh, well, if _that’s_ all—” She doesn’t even finish before he takes her joke as assent, arranging her just so and draping the towel that had once been around her hair back over her shoulders, pinning it in place like a shawl with a safety pin he produces from somewhere.

“There. Do your best to sit still, please. I promise to be as quick as I can. There’s still plenty of night for us to enjoy.”

‘There’s still a lot of night to enjoy.’ What the hell else are we going to do all night? She lets that thought occupy her while Yusuke paints over the old portrait on his canvas with quick sweeps, watching him with a faint smile. Oh well. Let the Futaba of 4 hours from now worry about it.


End file.
